World Cup is finished: a diverse perspective
João Dias
The world cup is finished after a month of several emotions, joys, sorrows, rages, some controversies and filled the world with emotions, allowing people to forget for a few moments everyday life.
Russia is to be congratulated! The country organized a World Cup where it managed to transmit a friendly image of its people. Security was also highly praised - there were not many serious cases of violence recorded, and people generally felt safe, fortunately racism was not an important subject either. However, some cases of harassment were reported, leaving some questions unanswered. This situation, however, must be framed in the current times, where there is a lot of controversy about some concepts and behavioural limits, in which harassment has been one of the main "protagonists".
Yet, if we did not acknowledge serious episodes of violence in the host country, on the other hand, there were some dismal and disturbing scenes of violence in some French cities after the "bleus" won the trophy.
France, though, was a fair winner; the final match was not always well played, there were made several errors that ended up penalizing both teams. This allowed us to watch a game with 6 goals (France 4 - Croatia 2), thus countering last world cup finals where goals were always scarce.
The team which ended up winning was more pragmatic and was only interested on conquering the trophy, contradicting a Croatia team that also tried to play a good football. When handing over the awards, we witnessed a heavy rain scenario, perhaps congratulating not only the winners, but also the honourable losers.
With regard to winners, France won its second world championship, 20 years after its first conquest. We could observe the existence of some similarities with the victory 20 years ago. The one that has been more emphasized, concerns the origins of the French team players. There are those who call France the "African team", since Zidane's and his companions era. But, is it fair to make such a statement?
Yes, France is multicultural, but it isn't alone in this matter. There are immigrants, children of immigrants and more than a dozen nations involved. we must keep in mind that FIFA allows athletes to play for any nation they have a clear connection to, including the country a player's parents or grandparents are from. In this world cup, 82 players were playing for countries they weren't born in.
France is where the largest number of all world cup players were born - 50. Brazil is next, but it's not even close: 28.
To understand this phenomenon, one has to go back in time to the 50´s and 60's when France brought in more immigrants than any other European country. In the following decades, with a growing economy, there was a new wave of immigrants - with even more arrivals from French colonies throughout Africa and Caribbean countries. Many of them settled in major housing developments just outside the major cities.
Furthermore, since the 70/80's, French football undertakes a big project which supports the French academy system placed in Clairefontaine since 1988. Ever since it has produced big achievements to the French national side.
Many of the French players are immigrants themselves, or children of immigrants. In addition to the French and Spanish, like Lloris, there are descendants of the Philippines, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Algeria, Italy, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Morocco, Togo, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
However, this isn't an immigrant team, despite the multi-ethnic origin of 17 nations. Only two were born out of France or their overseas territories: goalkeeper Steve Mandanda, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the defender Samuel Umtiti in Cameroon.
Despite racist criticism, players from immigrant families have continued to make up more and more of France's best talent. Access to teams to start a career has incentives from governments and is structured. Being a professional player or not, defending the colours of France or not, is a later decision.
Many come from one place in particular: 38% of immigrants to France settle in Greater Paris. Most of them in suburbs - over the years, these areas have frequently seen riots, high level of unemployment, crime and poverty. Yet, they continue to produce some of the most talented football players. Paris is the world's number 1 talent pool for football.
Out of all French players at the 2018 World Cup (50), 16 were born or raised in Greater Paris. The French team has 8, all children of immigrants - Mbappé, for instance, was born to an Algerian mother and Cameroonian father in the Parisian suburb of Bondy and was trained through the French system at Clairefontaine.
Parisian players play also for other national teams like Ivory Coast, Algeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Togo, or even Portugal (Raphael Guerreiro).
That's what's special about French Football - the combination of an established academy system and its unique immigration history is producing incredible talent for France and the rest of the world.
Nevertheless, as "The Economist" magazine has pointed out, President Macron can take advantage of football for political reasons too." First, it represents the sort of social mobility that he approves of. Second, the French team has become a classy national advertisement. And third, liberal democracies need heroes, he has argued, if they are to rouse a positive national spirit when faced by the menace of nationalism".
In 2022 Qatar is going to host next tournament. For now, there are many doubts and unanswered questions, although we already know the tournament will take place in November and December. Hopefully, we will have a big surprise and success will ultimately follow!
Some interesting facts and interrogations:
- National team shirts and tradition, ultimately no longer win matches
- Pragmatism and playing to win is already being imposed over romantic and artistic football. Even for people, what matters is your country wins.
- Will this world cup end Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's dominance in the Golden Ball trophy?
- Mario Zagallo (Brazil), Franz Beckenbauer (Germany) and Didier Deschamps (France) are the three "musketeers" who managed to win the World Cup as players and coaches.
- The dominance of the European teams was more than evident. In the last eight, 6 teams were from Europe. In the semi-finals we only had European teams.